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At the end of the workout, they run up and jog down this hill at their house. They typically finish workouts with five minutes on the hill, 10 max. But on this day, 10 minutes grew to 12 minutes. And 12 to 15.

Asking when a workout will end is a great way to keep it going. They’d long ago learned that lesson. And dad is notorious for saying “one more” and not meaning it. Always one more rep. One more time. One more drill. So they’ve learned to just keep going until he says stop.

“So they’re looking at me,” Rick says. “But they know not to ask either. And they could tell the kind of mood I was in. So they’re going. Now we’re up to 18 minutes. And they’re looking at me. Not saying anything. … They’re not going to quit.”

The boys took turns rallying. Aiden would surge ahead while Macklin faded. Then Macklin would find another gear and push through while Aiden faded. The entire time, they looked into their dad’s eyes for a glimpse of mercy.

After 30 minutes, Rick finally called it off. They collapsed.

They eventually got up and started walking home. But Macklin mumbled under his breath.

“Now we’re fucked,” Macklin said with a laugh, recalling his audacious moment.

“And I go,” Rick chimed in, “‘What did you just say?’ And he goes, ‘Now we’re fucked for the week.’ I go, ‘Let me tell you something. On your first day of camp, they’re going to grind you. They’re going to backskate you. They’re going to have you out there for two hours. You think you’re going to get out of it? You think you’re not going to come back the next day and do it again, and do it again? So you better learn. If you want to be a pro, you gotta be able to handle this stuff and suck it up.'”

…

Another critical trait Macklin gets from his dad is attention to detail. Rick has engrained it in them from their earliest days. Doing the drills right. Eating breakfast. Packing a bag. Macklin remembers him telling them John Wooden’s story about how he taught his team how to put on socks to avoid blisters.

“Since we were younger, it has been about details,” Macklin said. “Even the little things. That stuff adds up and will actually make a difference. That’s one of the things he’s told us throughout our whole lives.

“You can only really get it when you’re older. And you start to understand how important it is.”

That’s why the “hill” story is so important. Because it was the son understanding the father’s lessons well enough to take such a bold stand.

They’ve been groomed to deem rest and recovery important. Rick was from the era of going hard. He pushed and he pushed. But he stresses to them to value and prioritize replenishment.

To Macklin, the hill story was a violation of that indoctrination.

“I want you to understand this workout,” Macklin said. “It wasn’t like normal hills.”

The Celebrini residence is a ranch in Livermore, a little over 30 miles northeast of San Jose. Known for its vineyards and its cowboy history, Livermore sits in a valley halfway between mountain ranges. It gets hot starting in late spring. By the summer, leather seats in the car become hot plates grilling bare thighs.

The driveway up to the house has an incline. But so does the path from the entrance of their property to the driveway. The hill included scaling both inclines.

“It’s 100-degree heat. It was, like, run up and jog back. Lunges up, jog back. Run up, jog back. Lunges up — and he just kept going,” Macklin said, rubbing his legs as if they were hurting thinking about it.

“I’m never opposed to work. I’ll work. But it was after, like, three hours on the ice. Plus another two-hour lift and a workout. And then we went into this hill. We still had Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday left. So I was looking at it like, ‘I’m fucked. I can’t do this anymore. I’m legit not going to have any energy. We’re fucked. Now we can’t do anything.’”

…

“Every athlete that he works with,” Macklin said, “you hear them say, ‘Your dad is a genius, pretty much.’ But you’re like, ‘Whatever. He’s dad,’ But we all know he’s the best at what he does. Everything he does is for a purpose. And he will never say his way is the right way, but I think his way is the right way. And it works.”

Then, with a straight face, and as matter-of-factly as possible, Macklin made one thing clear.

“But I’ll never say it publicly.”

…

The “hill” story doesn’t end on the hill. But in the house.

Eventually, dad’s fiery speech ended. Aiden and Macklin walked away. Everybody showered and got ready for dinner.

Dad was at the table when he heard the door open behind him. While he had justification for his tough love, especially with his son’s pro potential, Rick knows himself and his tendencies. He knows his kids. He knows what they can handle, how they respond. They’ve been granted the freedom to be their full selves, which for Macklin means being chill, and kind, and funny, and occasionally combustible. This was one of those moments where dad expected the tension from the hill to make it to the dinner table.

But Macklin, instead, wrapped his arms around his seated father from behind. The son squeezed tight enough to convey a love they don’t often declare.

“And he gives me a kiss on the cheek,” Rick said. “And he’s like, ‘Thanks, da-da.’”

The sentimentality, especially among the Celebrini men, is most often tucked away behind the chiseled family jawline and intense eyes. They don’t lacquer on the heartwarming.

“I don’t remember that,” Macklin said, fighting off a smile as he barely hung onto the bit. “At all. He made that part up.”

that sure is a family dynamic!

And a little bonus from Macklin’s mom:

“They’re a lot more similar than Macklin is willing to admit,” Robyn, Macklin’s mother, said. “The intensity of their personalities. Their competitiveness. … He was a little wild man. We were always just trying to find healthy outlets for his energy.”

…

“I sometimes, privately, remind him, like, ‘OK, you’re taking that a little too far,’” Robyn said, standing in the back of the Sharks’ suite at the Sphere. Macklin is off doing his rounds with the media. Rick is locked in a conversation with Joe Thornton, the Sharks legend who introduced Macklin as the No. 1 pick. “And he’s really open to that. … But he’s always put his relationship with the kids first. It’s just he’s so passionate. He can be pretty tough.”

Robyn’s expression changed. She tilted her head back. Rests her hand on her chest. Her countenance shifted to confidence.

“He doesn’t scare me,” she said, breaking character with a hearty laugh. “I handle him just fine.”